Albert M. Wolters

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Albert Wolters (born 1942 in the Netherlands) is a professor of Religion & Theology, and Classical Studies at Redeemer University College in Ancaster, Ontario (near Hamilton) and has provided expert commentary for the Copper Scroll in the Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (ISBN 0-19-508450-0), and also in a Nova documentary.

After World War II, his family left the Netherlands for Canada. He studied in the preseminary program at Calvin College, despite being an agnostic at the time of his application. While in the program, he converted to Christianity, citing one of his professors, H. Evan Runner, as a major influence. As part of his conversion, he concluded that his calling was not towards the ministry, but towards philosophy. Consequently he returned to the Netherlands and studied the history of philosophy at the Free University in Amsterdam, where he wrote a dissertation on Plotinus before moving back to Canada.

His first teaching job was in philosophy at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto. Notes from his lectures there were transformed into Creation Regained (1985), which became heavily influential in reformational philosophy and was successful in South Korea. From there his research moved towards biblical studies, and he was hired by Redeemer College, a university he had previous associations with. There his work has focused on the Dead Sea Scrolls, particularly the Copper Scroll. His current projects include work on the book of Zechariah.

He is one of few people with access to the actual Dead Sea Scrolls and is fluent in Dutch, Friesian, German, English, Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic, Mandarin and others.

Speculation on the contents of his ubiquitous 'fanny pack' is the subject of light-hearted debate at Redeemer; some have suggested that the dead sea scrolls are among its contents.

[edit] Publications

Plotinus: "On Eros." A Detailed Exegetical Study of Enneads III, 5 (Toronto: Wedge, 1984).
Creation Regained: Biblical Basics for a Reformational Worldview (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985; 2nd edition 2005), ISBN 0-8028-2969-4
The Copper Scroll: Overview, Text and Translation (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1996).
The Song of the Valiant Woman: Studies in the Interpretation of Proverbs 31:10-31 (Carlisle UK: Paternoster Press).